ET Startup Awards: Meet the contenders for best investor & social enterprise

Here is the final installment of shortlists in two categories, rounding off the eight from which the winners of The Economic Times Startup Awards 2017 will be chosenET Bureau | July 22, 2017, 10:13 IST

Here is the final installment of shortlists in two categories, rounding off the eight from which the winners of The Economic Times Startup Awards 2017 will be chosen

Company: Samunnati FinancialFounded: 2014Founder: Anil Kumar SGBased: ChennaiKey investors: Accel Partners, ElevarWhat it does: Uses the power of aggregation to help farmers get the benefit of discounts in the agricultural value chain

The winning team should exhibit three important traits. They should be working to solve a real problem—one that represents a major pain point for consumers or businesses.

The founding team should embody the technical and domain skills needed to go the distance—large, successful businesses need teams that can weather the storms and run the marathon. Finally, they should have a solid, viable business model that can lead to a large and valuable business over time.

Avnish Bajaj – MD, Matrix Partners India

The award is about recognising excellence and outlier accomplishment that shows up in multiple ways, viz., breakthrough product innovations, resilience, financial metrics, great returns, etc, that get captured in the various categories with different monikers. Since this is an annual award, I will focus on the past year in particular and look for some breakout trajectory during this period.

Binny Bansal – Group CEO, Flipkart

A few things distinguish winners in the startup space. The foremost is an entrepreneurial mindset. The ability to spot a problem, rally one’s resources towards finding solutions, and withstand a decent amount of risk makes all the difference. There is also the solidity of the idea and the ability to scale up. Entrepreneurs also need to find innovative solutions for India-specific issues. I would also look at how technology is being leveraged.

Gautam Sinha – CEO, Times Internet

Intelligent, hungry, passionate entrepreneurs thinking original and thinking big. I will be looking forward to see India producing some (future) global-scale product startups. The winners should be looking to solve a meaningfully BIG problem with an opportunity to create significant value.

Their drive to continuously improve (listen and learn) and their pursuit of a big, audacious goal. In the startup category, it is always: 1) founders/team (competence, culture/values, humility and grit); 2) idea and scale; 3) defensible IP; 4) business model/strategy.